"Threatened Order - Societies under Stress"

The Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 923 "Threatened Order - Societies under Stress"

The Arab Spring, the financial crisis, and the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima have all left significant marks on international politics, economies, societies, and cultures. Extreme situations like upheavals, revolutions, and disasters affect everyday life. Such circumstances make us aware of how fragile and contingent the foundations of our life and actions are. Extreme situations can also lead to rapid change in social perception and behavior patterns.

Working with the above mentioned threat scenarios, as well as others, the projects of CRC 923 investigate the manner in which various social orders (which can structure social groups or entire societies) change, especially when facing threats to their very existence.

The Centre's research focuses on Europe from Antiquity to contemporary history. Additional projects analyse African, North and Latin American, Chinese and Australian examples of threatened social orders.

The CRC's main interdisciplinary project areas—Violent Protest, Disasters, Dissolution of social Orders, and Competing social Orders— as well as the Ancillary Project Group “Cultural Dynamics” seek to achieve four long-term research goals:

Historizing the perception and interpretation of current crisis diagnostics

Analysing the mechanisms of rapid social changes

Redefining spacial and temporal categories in the social sciences and the humanities

Reflecting on the fundamentals of the participating disciplines in the era of globalization